Squad will patrol no-fly-zones and order unlawful operators to land their drones.

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In an effort to enforce no-fly-zones across the city, Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department is launching a drone squad. According to Japan Today (via Popular Science), the squad will patrol no-fly-zones and "will search for the operators and order them to ground the drones."

If an operator fails to comply, police will scramble large drones up to 10 feet long armed with cameras and nets to take down the unwanted machines. There's no word yet on whether said tactics will be accompanied by a perfectly-timed blast of The A-Team theme tune, though—we can but dream.

Despite the humorous name, the drone squad will take on some serious issues in Toyko. "Terrorist attacks using drones carrying explosives are a possibility," a senior member of the police department's security bureau told the Asahi Shimbun website. "We hope to defend the nation's functions with the worst-case scenario in mind."

Further Reading

Earlier this year, a 40-year-old Japanese man admitted he landed an unmanned drone carrying radioactive sand atop Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's office in an effort to protest nuclear power. Nobody was injured in the stunt.

The launch of the drone squad follows an amendment to Japan's Civil Aeronautics Law that went into effect yesterday. The law limits drones to flights below 500 feet (compared to 400ft in the US and UK), and also bans drones larger than 200g from dense residential areas, which includes all of Tokyo. The fines for violating these rules could be as much as ¥500,000, or roughly £2,800.

Promoted Comments

There's something hilarious, dystopian and wonderful all at the same time, about living in a future where you'll be able to look out of your window and see high-tech pilotless gizmos flying around the city trying to catch each other in nets for the sake of law-enforcement and terrorist prevention.

I want to see the version that fires an expanding net that wraps around the target drone and bags it up to carry off. If we get to the point where they can disassemble each other for parts, I'm not sure there'll be anything left for humanity worth achieving!